This is just another set of random stories related to bin Laden’s death.

First, Obama visits ground zero.

It’s good to know he doesn’t ever want to be seen as “spiking the ball.” Seriously, if he isn’t there for a victory lap, what is he there for?

Update: Let me add this for clarity. I’m not upset at Obama for taking a victory lap. I am upset at him for the hypocrisy of doing so after his condescending claim that he won’t released photos because we as a people shouldn’t be spiking the football.

Speaking of non-spike-atude of the ball, Ace notices that someone set up a site called www.gutsycall.com and if you go there, it immediately redirects you to Obama’s reelection site. Ace is right to say it isn’t necessarily Obama who did it, but possibly one of his worshipers. I predict that as the sheer boneheadedness of this act becomes more obvious to the left, they will try to claim it’s a false flag thing, probably by Karl Rove in conjunction with the Koch brothers.

Oh God, are we returning to messiah mode with Obama, again? You want to know who made the gutsy call? The SEAL team, especially because apparently they might be prosecuted by Eric Holder for what they did. Not that Holder is fool enough to be threatening that now, but we learn via Ace that they are still considering whether to prosecute CIA interrogators for doing things like waterboarding. Ace’s original draft said, “Holder’s holding indictments over the heads of CIA interrogators — the same ones who delivered Obama to him.”

(Emphasis added.) Well, thank God they helped us kill Obama bin Biden Osama bin Laden! No malice, Ace, we all do it once in a while. I’m just amused. And of course his post is making a serious point, that shouldn’t be lost in the joke. I know “just following orders” is not an excuse for committing a clear violation of human rights, but waterboarding is not a clear violation of human rights, period. You can see Burlingame discussing her meeting here.

About bin Laden’s burial at sea executed within 24 hours of his death as prescribed by Muslim law, the president said, “Frankly, we took more care on this than, obviously, bin Laden took when he killed 3,000 people. He didn’t have much regard for how they were treated and desecrated. But that, again, is something that makes us different. And I think we handled it appropriately.”

Kroft asks President Obama if it was his decision to bury the al Qaeda leader at sea. “It was a joint decision. We thought it was important to think through ahead of time how we would dispose of the body if he were killed in the compound,” says the president. “And I think that what we tried to do was – consulting with experts in Islamic law and ritual – to find something that was appropriate, that was, respectful of the body.”

Well, first Mr. President, there is a world of difference between not desecrating a body and giving it a full Islamic funeral. The first is accomplished by not relieving yourself on it into the hole left where his eye was, to give a specific example. Now I am all for desecration in the form of wrapping his body and the body of every other terrorist in bacon, so that his followers will know that they won’t be getting their seventy-two virgins, but I can appreciate and respect the desire to show we are decent and not even do that. But why on Earth would you want to not only avoid actively desecrating it, instead revere it with a proper Islamic funeral. Seriously, frak that.

Second, Mr. President, dumping him in the sea was not correct by his faith. So you destroyed evidence without attaining the benefit you wanted to get from it—to show the Muslim world we are so decent toward even our enemies.

Third, isn’t that all offensive toward good Muslims? Someone, I forgot who, said this was just like as if someone decided that the proper way to treat Tim McVeigh was to give him a proper Christian burial at Arlington Cemetery. It’s offensiveness in the guise of courtesy.

Pakistan warned America Thursday of “disastrous consequences” if it carries out any more unauthorized raids against suspected terrorists like the one that killed Osama bin Laden.

However, the government in Islamabad stopped short of labeling Monday’s helicopter raid on bin Laden’s compound not far from the capital Islamabad as an illegal operation and insisted relations between Washington and Islamabad remain on course.

Hey, here’s how it works, Pakistan. If you don’t allow terrorists to live in your country, we won’t go into your country. Deal?

Also Castro isn’t happy. Of course not, he’s afraid he is next. Can’t have people thinking it is okay to take down terrorists and dictators…

In Germany, the media reaction has been especially noteworthy for its near unanimous criticism of the American raid. Many German analysts say the American action was illegal under international law and some Germans have called for an international commission (similar to the Goldstone Commission in Israel) to investigate the U.S. foray into Pakistan.

I know what you are thinking. Frak those Euroweenies. And I agree. But I thought electing Obama would make them all like and support us again?

Sources involved in the operation that took down Usama bin Laden told Fox News the terrorist leader acted “scared” and “completely confused” in his final moments, “shoving his wife” at the Navy SEAL who ultimately shot him.

I mean seriously, I want to believe all that, but why the hell should I? We have been jerked around enough already. They are going to have to do better than that if they are going to convince me that this is finally the actual series of events. And both that account and this one suggests that most of the people killed were not armed. But official White House position number 12 says that there was a firefight. But you should be skeptical because let’s remember, the Pakistanis are suspect now—especially the ones who lived in bin Laden’s neighborhood. So when we see them call the raid “cold blooded” you wonder, “I am sorry, are our SEALS supposed to do what? Give them a square chance to fight back? Risk their lives for your sense of fair play?” I don’t think so.

And via the Daily Mail we get an explanation of why it isn’t unsporting to kill apparently unarmed men. Because they are fraking terrorists:

The elite U.S. Navy Seals team that killed him was told to assume he was wearing a suicide vest if he was clothed, according to a briefing given to a congressional aide.

The aide – briefed on the rules of engagement – revealed that Bin Laden ‘would have had to be naked for them to allow him to surrender’.

Of course that is subject to the caveat the White House can’t seem to get its story straight, and that it sounds more like they were authorized to fire in that situation, rather than required to.

I am reminded of the false surrender and suicide attacks of Japanese soldiers during WWII. After enough of that dishonorable behavior, we stopped letting the Japanese soldiers even pretend to surrender. I don’t think there was anything wrong, morally, with that, and I don’t see why bin Laden should be treated any different. And if the terrorists don’t like it, then whose fault is it that they find themselves in that situation?

While I suspect that the risk of capturing bin Laden would have been worth it for the intel value, I am not going to second guess the SEALS for deciding not to try to take him alive.

There is a rising tide of voices saying, more or less, “release the damn photo.” Giuliani agrees, and “Jeannie Evans, of Elmont, who lost her baby brother firefighter Robert Evans on 9/11[,]” says more generally, “Why not show us proof, that Bin Laden was killed? I would like to see that[.]” You should read that whole article for the shabby way they have treated the September 11 families generally, with form letters and the like. Jim Treacher has a funny take that finds the same irritation I did at the President’s sanctimonious justification for withholding the photos:

How about this for a reason: I want to see the pictures because they show Osama Bin Laden with a big hole in his head. I saw people jump out of the Twin Towers. I saw those buildings fall down. I saw the people who ran for their lives down the streets of New York in front of an avalanche of ash. I saw the faces of the people who lived through it. Now I want to see what happened to the guy who did it. I want the world to see how that turned out for him.

And if Reprimander-in-Chief Barack Obama wants to scold me for it, he should’ve thought about that before he called in Dick Cheney’s secret assassination squad. It really is hard to keep track of what you’re supposed to be proud of these days, isn’t it? Remember: Pouring water on a terrorist’s face goes against our core values as Americans. You gotta break into his house and shoot him in the eyes.

Fundamentally Obama thinks he is here to teach us to be better people. And yeah, that is pretty insufferable.

And Alan Dershowitz chimes in, in a brilliant essay pointing out how idiotic both disposing of the body and not releasing photographs really is:

Burying his body at sea constituted the willful destruction of relevant evidence, which naturally gives rise to suspicions that there was something to hide. I fully credit the administration’s explanation that the reason for the hasty burial at sea was the desire not to offend religious Muslims and not to create a shrine to a dead mass murderer. But many reasonable people around the world will wonder whether the decision may also have been based on a desire to suppress the whole truth.

In my nearly half-century of representing defendants charged with homicide, I have come to know that the best evidence of how a person died comes from the body of the deceased. Dead bodies often talk more loudly, clearly and unambiguously than live witnesses. Bin Laden’s body should have been preserved as long as necessary to gather all relevant evidence, notwithstanding the requirements of Shariah Law.

When a Muslim or a Jew is the victim of a homicide in the United States, religious considerations do not trump civil requirements. Their bodies are generally sent to the medical examiner for thorough examination. Notwithstanding religious prohibitions, autopsies are performed and organs removed for testing. No special exception should have been made for bin Laden’s body.

That was my impression, too—we try to work around religious sensibilities, but if you have to keep the body unburied for investigatory purposes, tough. Read the whole thing.

And I remember shortly after 9-11 there was this great unity. And even on the night we learned that bin Laden was killed, there was a similar unity. And now we might be seeing it again as Eugene Robinson (!) also argues for releasing the photos:

[W]hile gory photographs would have inflamed some jihadists and wannabes, I believe they would have disillusioned and deflated others. A heroic myth of invulnerability had been built around bin Laden. He was supposed to have cheated death while fighting the Russians in Afghanistan, walking tall through fields of fire as the bullets somehow missed. He escaped the Americans who cornered him at Tora Bora. He evaded capture for a decade, despite the best efforts of the West’s spies and soldiers.

Showing him in death would definitively refute any notion that bin Laden enjoyed some kind of divine protection. The myth would die with the man.

I mean he can’t make it through the whole post without swiping at conservatives, but still, wow, is there anyone supporting Obama on this?

Oh, right there is Andrew Sullivan. He’s ready to accept the official story without investigation and Pejman Yousefzadeh has waaaay too much fun asking Andrew Sullivan why he isn’t as interested in investigating the truth about bin Laden’s death as he was about the truth of Trig’s birth.

Something else that doesn’t add up, they spent 40 minutes hanging around a place that we are being told was the most militarized area in Pakistan. I think the Pakistan government gift wrapped Osama for us. We could have went in and killed him or taken him prisoner and got out in two minutes but we felt it was safe enough to hang around for what is an eternity in rescue mission minutes.

Excellent work disposing of Osama but we need to get al-Zawahiri and a laundry list of others — quickly — before I will be convinced of a long-standing upper hand against global terror directed toward US interests. Those other high value targets would include the likes of Mullah Omar, and many of the firebrand clerics in Indonesia (especially those sympathetic to Osama and the Bali bombings), and elsewhere. Pakistan, as expected, is proving itself to be a half-hearted ally in the war on terror — as indicated by recent government reaction there, and of course, the widespread outpouring of public support in the the street for Osama following his death.

j curtis, you make a good point. There is a 20 minute firefight (with one guy so the story goes now) and the compound is 1,000 yards from the West Point of Pakistan? What did the neighbors, retired Pakistani military that lives in Abattabad, and the active military think was happening? Our SEALs were there for 40 minutes? That is an eternity in a mission like this one.

The timing is not that big a deal. It takes time to organize a reaction force and 40 minutes is probably not enough time to do so. Time how long it takes a SWAT team to deploy in a major US city, much less Pakistan.

Every time Obama, et al, attempt to convince us how multi-culti compassionate they are, all they do is reveal another layer of stupid – and this layer-cake is beginning to appear State-Dinner suitable.

To corrupt Samuel Johnson a bit, it is astonishing, but not surprising that the administration of the smartest President ever could actually screw up the assassination of the most hated man in America (NFL players and CAIR excluded, of course).

It is a big deal. If Pakistan wasn’t in on it, there would have been something like cops showing up to check out the commotion. These wouldn’t have to be pro-Osama cops, just the usual cops. Are the Seals supposed to shoot the cops when they arrive?

Your SWAT team analogy doesn’t work. A noisy home invasion or bank robbery is more analogous but even they require more steps than a quick in and out, find and kill mission.

#18, jc, a well planned mission would have included provisions to delay, misdirect, or obstruct local authorities to prevent them from interfering. Also, included in the overall plan would have a been sufficient US assets available to dissuade Pakistani military aircraft from intercepting the withdrawing helicopters.

**Now I am all for desecration in the form of wrapping his body and the body of every other terrorist in bacon**

HEATHEN! How dare you even consider desecrating one of the High Holy Meats like that? Hog’s lard is much easier to apply than bacon, and cheaper to boot. And no one cries if you desecrate hog’s lard.

Dershowitz wants the body preserved as homicide evidence? To help the Euro-weenies prosecute SEALs for violating UBL’s “human rights,” no doubt. Taking out the trash and tossing it to the sharks and crabs works for me.

The photos will leak soon enough. Obambi’s embarrassed. He wants all the credit, but he doesn’t want to acknowledge the credit is due to Bush policies that he and his beloved left hysterically denounced for years.

I think it was primarily a snatch mission gone sour, not a kill mission. Obama rejected an earlier plan to destroy the compound with smart bombs supposedly for fear of collateral damage, even though military experts explained the high walls surrounding the compound would contain the blast and debris.

Additionally, by dumping the body at sea and refusing to release photographs, the Administration has put itself in the same position they would have been in if they’d bombed the compound: no primary evidence, a body; and no secondary evidence, pictures to serve as proofs of death.

Moreover, the absurd melodrama of contradictory and rapidly changing narratives is sure to convince observers the Obama Administration is hiding the truth. How can any rational person think otherwise?

Here’s another thought, if the unreleased pictures do show a gaping hole above the left eye in bin Laden’s head big enough to expose his brains, it’s likely he was shot from behind. Entry wounds are small and well defined, exit wounds are irregular, much larger, and end to force interior matter out the exit wound.

Respect for the dead? Are you effin kidding me? He has been President for almost 3 years now, and just got around to going there, and it was just a coincidence that he chose to do so less than a week after he flew the helo, rapelled from helo under fire, single handedly killed OBL and then saved 40 SEALS from certain death with his heroics.

The fact is he didn’t bother to go until he had something to crow about. its a victory lap. everyone knows it is a victory lap. there was no other reason to go there than the fact he killed bin laden. its not like it was the anniversary of the attacks or anything.

> I know how difficult it must be to come up everyday with some outrage against Obama,

I’m not outraged he went. he is entitled to his victory lap. he’s entitled to go there and say, “i got the bastard.” i won’t begrudge him that.

But its hypocritical to do that, and then sniff his nose at showing the photos as “spiking the football.”

right. so it was a giant coincidence that the first time he chose to visit ground zero, as president, was right after killing bin laden.

Why is this so hard to understand? Obama visited the “hallowed ground” where bin Laden wreaked his havoc and paid respect to those who had fallen there. The killing of bin Laden brought that about, but that doesn’t make the visit a “victory lap”. The purpose was to pay tribute to the 9/11 dead.

Here’s one way: You make a grand entrance — say, on a Navy jet, while wearing a flight suit. After debarking, you shake hands with military people. And then you give a speech in front of a giant banner saying “Mission Accomplished”. That’s how you take a victory lap, my friend.

Obama made no grand entrance; he made no speech at all. He laid a wreath, silently, and with dignity, at a place of sacred ground.

All of this is a little silly IMO. Like most people who visit here, I await the day when BHO is no longer President, but come on, this is nit picking, and unworthy of us. We play right into the hands of those we disagree with (the Liberals) when we do things like this post.

The bottom line is that our military got the job done, and this administration (as much as we don’t like it and “Hope” that it “Changes” lol) deserves major credit making it happen.

for myself, I don’t see anything wrong with spiking the ball, GWB would be tap dancing on a carrier if his administration had made the kill, and that’s ok too.

Again, the guy who turned off the lights claimed he scored a touchdown. He says he can prove he scored, it’s on instant replay. However, you can’t look at it, it might upset the other guys. Instead, he’ll let you watch him spike the ball. Fair enough?

> for myself, I don’t see anything wrong with spiking the ball, GWB would be tap dancing on a carrier if his administration had made the kill, and that’s ok too.

I have no problem with Obama spiking the ball. i have a problem with him getting all snooty and accusing us of wanting to spike it.

I have said right from the beginning that obama is entitled to take some credit from this. and i don’t think he has gone over the line. I just object to the hypocrisy.

Kman

> And isn’t that an odd thing to do if Obama’s purpose was to take a victory lap for killing bin Laden?

So visiting FDNY firefighters is not at all part of what a victory lap would entail. Osama killed around 200 of their brothers that day, but meeting with them just after killing Osama has nothing to do with that fact.

So visiting FDNY firefighters is not at all part of what a victory lap would entail. Osama killed around 200 of their brothers that day, but meeting with them just after killing Osama has nothing to do with that fact

LOL! You’re so binary. In your mind, it’s either “a victory lap” or “nothing to do with killing OBL”, and nothing else.

Again (and for the last time), killing OBL was obviously the impetus for the NY visit, but that does not make the visit a “victory lap” or a “spike the ball” moment. He was solemnly commemorating the dead from ten years’ past, not celebrating the success of last weekend’s military operation.

I understand the argument that releasing photos from Abu Ghraib would endanger troops because it fuels outrage, but is it really true that a photo showing America is willing to pursue and kill enemies like Osama Bin Laden — no matter how much it costs and how long it takes — endangers our troops? It seems to me the net effect might actually be to protect our troops because terrorists would think twice about attacking us.

Well, even if there is someone who doesn’t mind the USA killing Bin Laden, but will kill if he sees a photo of it, I think DRJ’s point overwhelms it. There’s a reason Bin Laden kid in that bedroom for 5 years, never having a blue sky over his head, or making a statement to his comrades, or joining in the fight in any material way.

He was afraid of us killing him. The more the USA makes the case that we will hunt down terrorists, and show just how grisly their end will be, the more of them will be scared before they plan a 9/11, instead of scared afterwards.

It is a matter of common sense that more people will be scared of attacking us, than will be motivated to attack us, based on this photo.

For what its worth, the greatest evidence that Osama been dying is really dead is the fact that up till this moment there has not been any video tape of him coming to refute the “lies” about his purported death. That’s apart from his group AQ confirming that their ceo is dead. That says a lot. The long deafening silence of Osama-been-loving-to-video-himself-talking-crap-laden since the news of his death. No new video tapes. That’s scary.